This invention relates generally to electronic document management systems, and more particularly, to automating the placement of documents in an electronic reserves system.
Course materials, for example, documents and other information resources that instructors make available to students, are traditionally kept in binders on a xe2x80x9creserve shelfxe2x80x9d of a library. Typical reserve materials consist of copies of previous exams, articles from scientific and trade journals, homework solutions, excerpts from books, and the like. Generally, there is only one copy of a document placed on reserve. Furthermore, such document is traditionally available only for in-library use, on a short-term loan basis.
An emerging solution to the limitations presented in traditional reserve mechanisms involve placing reserve materials on electronic reserve. In fact, with the growth of the Internet, electronic document delivery and storage now extends far beyond course reserves to make all types of documents available electronically. A significant fraction of the documents added to electronic databases, however, exist in an ink-on-paper format. Those who administer such systems, for example, librarians, college faculty, and school teachers, are thus faced with the task of first converting these paper copies to electronic formats, and then transferring the computer file(s) to an Internet server used to house an electronic documents database.
The current two-step process for placing printed materials on electronic reserve is unsatisfactory for many users in that the process may be time-consuming and potentially confusing to an average (non-technical) teacher, librarian, or administrator. Both the scanning and the file transfer steps require some, if not considerable, technical expertise. Even someone skilled in the use of a scanner may sometimes struggle to create output files that are both of manageable size and of high display quality. Many times, post-scanning image processing may be necessary to either reduce the size of the output files and/or make them more legible. Such post-scanning image processing is time consuming and also requires some technical knowledge.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system and method for automating the placement of documents into an electronic reserves system. Such a system and method should preferably cater to the needs of people with little or no technical expertise to facilitate the electronic placement of such documents.
The present invention is directed to a network server in an electronic reserves system. In one embodiment of the invention, the network server includes an input, a storage device, and a processor. The input allows the automatic receipt of a facsimile transmission of a document to be placed on electronic reserve. The processor is coupled to the input and the storage device, and includes logic for automatically formatting the received document into a pre-determined file format, assigning a password to the formatted document, and saving the formatted document into the storage device for later retrieval upon receipt of the assigned password.
In a further embodiment of the invention, the network server includes a processor with logic to include the received document into a list of documents pending to be placed on electronic reserve. The processor further provides a graphical user interface for allowing a user to view the list of documents pending to be placed on electronic reserve, select the received document from the list, assign a password to the selected document, select a particular reserves area, and move the selected document to the selected reserves area.
It should be appreciated, therefore, that the present invention helps simplify the placing of paper documents in electronic reserve. The users need no longer struggle with scanners, post-scanning devices, and manual file transfers which may be confusing and time-consuming for people with little or no technical expertise. Instead, a faxed document is automatically received by the network server, formatted, and placed on reserve. The graphical user interface further provides ease and convenience in placing a document on electronic reserve.